Idea Sirji!

Last weekend, I was watching a football match and also a cricket match and voila, I get another pointless idea and I am bored enough right now to think its important enough. :-)

So, here goes... We have electronic boundary boards showing Ads during football. This means, its not a stagnant single company Ad made of paper and stuck on some cardboard. This is an LED (similar?) board which can show any Ad at runtime. Cricket hasn't gotten that sophisticated yet, but it will get there sooner rather than later. Lets take the case of football first. A live English Premier League game is watched in so many countries. Now, lets take a site like 888. They are a big deal sponsor in EPL and pay quite a bit to get onto these electronic boards. This site is not well known in India and the EPL folks are not going to get as much money(or viewership attention) showing this Ad while telecasting in India when compared to Airtel or similar. Likewise, the India vs SL series is mainly sponsored by IDBI Fortis, a new investment wing of IDBI bank. I am quite sure they have next to no presence in SL and hence this is meant mainly for the indian TV audiences. So, what about the Srilankans ? Wouldn't they be relate more to say, Dilmah Tea ?

In case you haven't got what I am getting at, my idea is that all the boundary boards be made green in colour, so as to make it easily graphicable, for lack of a better word. So, just like in the movies, with the help of Computer Graphics, the green coloured boards can house country specific Ads, hence increasing the sponsorship worth of events and hence more money flowing and more glamourous and all that good stuff.

There is this one glitch of the actual money paying viewers at the ground seeing just green boards. But I am sure there is some technology that can come to help in this case too.

How does it sound ? Can this fund my EMIs while the recession eats aways more jobs (me next?) ? :-)

Genius...But!

So... another grand slam final and another Nadal win. Don't get me wrong, it was a great match and all, but somehow I expected something different. No, I didn't think the result would be any different, but I expected something more from Federer.

Federer has played Nadal in 5 grand slam finals now, if I remember correctly. He has lost 4 of them and 3 of them on different surfaces. Now, the genius that we all know Federer is, how can he be losing so consistently. Well, this in my humble opinion is his problem. He is a one dimensional genius. He doesn't have a plan B, at least not with Nadal, And its only with Nadal that he really needs a plan B.

For e.g. it doesn't take rocket science and 13 grand slams to know who will win an endurance testing baseline slugfest between Federer and Nadal. And similarly its also straightforward to guess who would win a serve and volley contest. So, how come Federer didn't use a single grand slam final to try this possible 'Plan B' or for that matter any other 'Plan B'??

To reiterate, I do enjoy seeing Nadal beat Federer everytime as rooting for the underdog (not any more I suppose) is more fun. But still, what would Federer want to be remembered as ? The greatest player of all time or Nadals bunny ??

Music Review:Dilli 6

On the heels of the much heralded audio track of Slumdog Millionaire (I still wonder why), Rahman gives us Rakeysh Mehras next movie, Dilli 6.

Masakali - Kinda weird. I don't usually like Rahman when he tries this kinda stuff, but to the contrary to my usual assumption, Its not a bad hear. Surely a one month ear candy and some more.

Dilli-6 - The title track, this has a lot of character... kinda pacey. It has some lady rapping in some foreign language, probably french, and then in Hindi too with a similar accent. But nice mixing of styles...

Hey Kaala Bandar -  Sung really well and a very good english rap merge. The lyrics are actually good(for most part) and a catchy rhythmic tune and beat. This one will rule the radio channels for quite a while.

Bhor Bhaye - I am not classically inclined, but from what I heard, this is very well sung and otherwise out of my league. :-) One for Shreyas resume, if she will ever need one.

Dil Gira Dafatan - What does the title of this song mean ? Nice strumming and later on scottish pipes. Can't think of many music directors who can give us this kinda instrumentation feel. But that being said, the husky male vocals didnt do it for me and I didn't feel anything special in the tune either. I have an inkling that Rahmaniacs will brand this as one of the most brilliant tracks ever and stuff. To escape their wrath, lemme say, I don't have a clue of such high fundoo music, so let me be. :-) Hopefully situational song, otherwise the most pedestrian track of the album (for me).

Arti tumre bhavan mein - Whats with Rahman and devotional sounding songs ? He always seem to get it right, whether its bhajans or sufi songs. No real music to talk about, but a totally riveting tune. For reasons I can't well explain, this is winner of the album for me and would have loved for it to be longer that it actually was.

Arziyan - Again Rahman with his devotional sounding song and this one has got great male vocals. Both Javed Ali and Kailash Kher have exceled in my opinion.I didn't think there was anything out of the way in the tune, but a nice hear none the less. They neednt have had this as a 9 minute song though!

Ghenda Phool - Now this is what Rahman would call fusion, and why not. A rustic voice (Rekha Bharadwaj) mixing with club beats and yet sounding like they belong. This is the second song (first being Kala Bandar) that I would like to see the picturisation off. Though the lyrics give away the generic locale and feel, the music seems too 'out there' for it to be anything usual. Lets wait and watch....

Rehna Tu - Rahman sometimes keep the best track of the album for himself, but he hasnt done that here, since this is not a special song. Its OK sounding and Rahman sounds very Rahman like and there is nothing more to write home about.

So, all in all, we have a mixed bag with Dilli 6, with some songs that are good, some average and none that is bad per say. I would give it a 7 on 10, and the lesser rating coz, for me, there is no real cracker of a track in this album. :-(

Right Steps

Life has been happening and hence blogging has taken the second seat, no wait... third seat... no wait... its still waiting for a seat. ;-)

Coming to what I wanted to write about, dunno if you folks have noticed this, but there has been a rather strong message coming from the government and government supported agencies to do the right thing.

For e.g. I noticed the Ads on TV to try stopping domestic violence and if I may try profiling the audience, they have tried to target the less fearing and more outspoken younger brigade by playing them on channels like MTV. Not so long ago, there were many Ads on Consumer Awareness which is something very desperately needed in India. I have always found the after sales service in India close to robbery with none of the vendors caring a rats ass for the customer once the sale is done. Then there are Ads to initiate people into voting with "Jaago Re" series and also Ads on making people aware off and less embarrassed to talk and use condoms with "Condom Condom" series.

A much needed and well directed series of initiatives.

HNY 2009!

All you folks have a great year ahead! I will try to be more regular with posts here than I was last year [for better or worse ;-)].

But I am too lazy to actually make it a new year resolution..... Yet! :-)

Comment Promotion

This post was initially as a comment to this. But since Arun tracks my blog and my comment was more than a 'comment', I thought of posting it here. :-)

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First off, must have been quite a lazy afternoon for you to have tried your hand/mind at sathsang. :-)

That being said, self exploration is always good and if sathsang gets your there, nothing wrong with that. My view is, I somehow don't get the core point for being stateless and staying away from 'maya'. They main 'gyan' delivered by most spiritual leaders/oraters is, "if you have no wishes, you have no disappointment". That is so obvious, I don't see the point in everyone repeating it! What is the big funda in this ?? If you have no wishes you also have no drive to be better than 'average'. So, as per all the swamis, we have to be just average to be happy. Its so easy and frankly cliché to see all the bad and say that its 'maya' which is the cause of all misery. If "everyone" in the world always strove to be average, then would we have seen all the good in this world today ?? The lives that medicine is saving ? The lives that technology is improving ? etc etc.

Till I see someone who makes more than an obvious observation and says "stay away from maya", I don't see any point in wasting even the laziest of afternoons!
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Movie Review: Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

Those who know me well enough would be shocked that I actually saw this movie. If its any consolation, I didn't pay money to watch it. ;-) If you are still shocked, well, my defence is, I don't like SRK, but a Aditya Chopra movie could be interesting.

Anyway, I ended up with a copy of this movie and decided to give it a go. The movie is no where close to the completeness of other Aditya Chopra movies, but is not a bad one either. Its rather too filmy in portions where the age old superman crap works i.e. the guy loses his glasses and moustache and voila, his wife can't recognize him any more! Except for a couple of songs, the rest are forced upon you and kinda kills whatever little narration is working. Music lacks the punch, but is adequate I suppose. There is nothing special to mention about the other facets of the movie making as such, all was pretty straightforward representation of the directors vision. The film lacks any connection with reality and that is its biggest flaw, I suppose. For this movie to be effective, it should not have been a second over 2 hours, hell there is no story depth to even last that long.

SRK has done a decent job, but he always overacts and this movie is no different. Vinay Pathak has been wasted in the movie. He needs to be careful of not losing his "charm" so to speak, with Dasvidaniya, Oh My god and this movie all coming close on each others heels. Anushka Sharma is definitely the find of the movie. She dances superbly, can act decently enough (especially for a debut movie) and except for scenes where Aditya chopra actually tries to create some melodrama, she is quite natural with her expressions. In my opinion, she can take deepika padukone head on and whip her ass!

I would rate this movie at 6/10 and have a special mention for Anushka's dance, she sure can move! :-)

Whodunit ? Hedunit!

Sachin has finally done it! He has finally scored a century in a 4th innings victory for India. I have always yearned to see this and in fact have rated many like Inzamam ahead of Tendulkar because of Inzys ability to win test matches or Sachins inability to win them.

Finally, India chasing an epic score in the 4th innings, brings the very best out of the veteran and this 103 n.o. would be rated by many, including him, as one of his best ever hundreds! More so sweet because it happened in Chennai, which will sure help heal those Pakistan inflicted wound.

Thanks Sachin... Thanks!

p.s: Taking nothing away from Yuvraj though, he was just as instrumental if not more in winning this memorable test match! Kudos!

Sense And Sensibility!

When Mumbai 26/11 was happening, all the media channels ensured that no political parlays were allowed or debated. They could afford to do this because they had an opportunity to not do any programming and had LIVE "action" to show. Now that the 'LIVE'ness of the incident is over, the media is back to the politicians for debates and gyan. Can't blame them in entirity, as they need to look at their topline too. And at the end of the day, the whole incident was covered more correctly by the media than what we see them do on a daily basis.

No, this is not a 'rant' on the media, but on the same old boring topic of politicians. Why I don't tire telling this to people I meet or writing about it in emails and now blogging here is coz, the sheer narcissist attitude of many of the senior politicians after the incident is unpardonable at so many levels. You wanna be corrupt, be corrupt. You wanna be inept, be inept. You wanna be lazy, be lazy. The people of India usually don't care. But this... this is very very different. 'Everybody', in my office, my family, my friends, whom I have personally met have had a sense of seriousness about what has happened. There are no jokes cracked, there is no blame game going on, its just sheer shock about what has happened and worry about what are we going to do about all this. And what do we hear from our politicians ?

Vilasrao Deshmukh:
i) On why Ram Gopal Verma accompanied him to the Taj : Many people come to such places
ii) On whether he is going to resign : I have offered to resign, and if the CWC thinks there is some responsibility I need to shoulder for this incident, then yes, I will obey.
RR Patil:
i) On whether he is going to resign : There is no question of resigning
ii) On whether there was intelligence lapse : In big cities, such small things happen
Achuthanandan:
i) On why Sandeep Unnikrishnans parents shouted at him : I don't know. If not for Sandeep, even a dog won't go to their house.
Mukhtar Naqvi:
i) On the outrage against politicians : All this is rubbish

There are many more examples:
1. Like how Veerappa Moily wanted a probe into why Hemant Karkare was targeted and there was BJP hand in it. Sure sir, that is exactly the problem!
2. Or how Arun Jaitley felt that the entire government should resign. Sure sir, now is the right time for elections and we can all get busy voting you guys back into power.
3. Or how Advani or Rajnath Singh cannot make it to the 'all party' meeting hosted by the PM. Sure sirs, lets win the elections in Rajasthan first, Maharashtra elections are not around for some time.

I mean... c'mon guys, even if you can't do your jobs, at least act Indian, FOR ONCE!

Two Of A Kind ?

As if having one Raghu was not enough for the MTV Roadies contestant, he now has help from his twin brother Rajeev! I can't think both of them choosing to go with the exact same goatie plus bald look plus earrings etc. Orchestrated, but yet interesting ...

For some reason, I can't embed this video, youtube goof! Anywayz, here is the link. This post is thanks to my wife. :-)

Music Review: Yuvvraaj & Ghajini

I had been thinking of writing a review for Yuvvraaj for more than a week now, but just haven't gotten around to it. So, here it is, along with a bonus Ghajini music review. ;-)

Yuvvraaj:
Subhash Ghai wielding the directors mic after a long time (I think). Honestly, I don't think much of the guy as a director, but hey, what do I know! :-) So, as a movie, I was not looking forward to Yuvvraaj, and if I go by the reviews, I was right. But w.r.t music, "anything" from A R Rahman has gotta be more interesting than the rest of the fare. And this time, Rahman does not disappoint. The album is one of the best from Rahman off late and considering Jodhaa Akbar earlier in the year, bettering that, in my opinion was a tough ask. Rahman did just that with this album. Typical Kay-Kay range melody in Tu Meri Dost Hain and well rendered by Shreya and a good start in Bollywood by Benny Dayal. I feel he has goofed up around the end of a stanza at about a minute and 20 sec into the song, but I don't seem to find support from the most musically literate person I personally know (my wife :-)). Tell me if anyone else feels that Benny lost it. Next is Shano Shano which is a typical peppy number but a little slow for being a party song though. The next one, Tu Muskura, is my favourite in this album. How Rahman got Alka Yagnik to croon like her good ol' days will remain a mystery, but hell she has delivered! And Javed Ali, what can I say, I just like his raw, rustic and fresh voice. I need to hear this guy sing more! The album probably didn't need another light song, but it has Mastam Mastam. In my opinion, this is the weakest song in the album. Zindagi has the smooth-as-silk Srinivas delivering the song beautifully. This is more a Srinivas song than a Rahman one. Dil Ka Rishta is where Rahman displays his growing prowess in western style orchestration and does a really good job. Manmohini is an ok song I suppose, probably too classical for me to appreciate it. :-) . All in all, I loved 3 songs, and find the rest of the songs also to be good. I give it a 7.5 on 10. Have I ever rated albums before ?

Ghajini:
Getting two super albums in one year from Rahman that I love is rare and getting a third was almost too good to be true. But after hearing the promos of Guzarish, I knew I could well be surprised. Its Javed Ali again and another great song! As if his souding like Sonu Nigam was not confusing enough, the humming in the middle of the song is actually by Sonu Nigam! A very nice song and sung very well. Aye Bachoo is a fast number and ever so stylishly rendered by Suzanne. I liked it more for the attitude in Suzannes voice. Kaise Mujhe has Karthik at vocals doing a decent job and the song starts off with promise, but the song kinda moves into this lazy note and kinda lacks the initial emotions till Shreya does the rescue act. This is quite rare for a rahman song, and the album has been going only downhill from Guzarish. Behka by Rahman flavour of the season, Benny and the constant of the season, Shreya. The song didn't do anything for me. The promos of the songs seem interesting, but the song by itself was not. Latoo is a true run-of-the-mill song and somehow Shreya, though does a decent job, should leave this genre of songs to Sunidhi. A rather disappointing end to a promising start. I give it a 5.5 on 10, and I guess even this rating is being helped by the latent leftover effect of Yuvvraaj.

Rahman has been very busy this year, and I am yet to hear the soundtrack of Slumdog Millionaire. Maybe we have more to come from the Maestro before the year ends...

Yes, we live amongst them!

This is old news, but unfortunately, my ability to grasp important news has been "breaking" off late! This is extremely disturbing and hence you have been warned. But none the less, we need this kinda jolt once in a while to realize the difference between civilized and uncivilized forms of existence. BTW, I did think of writing the previous sentence as the "difference between civilized humans and wild animals", but I see enough Nat Geo to know that wild animals wouldn't be this uncivilized!



These are student clashes in chennai between two law colleges. The police apathy can prick at first, but remember, their action or inaction is not decided by them. You can see the police officer talking to someone on the phone and his apparent orders are to find a good spot from where he can watch the action rather than diffuse it!

I googled the net to know the reason behind these acts of aggression, but I surprisingly couldn't find any. All I could find was people talking about politics inside the campus etc etc. If anyone knows the reason (I am sure its going to be painfully silly!) or followed the news, please let me know.

Movie Review: Quantum of Solace

Its been a while since I have written a review and what better to get back to the groove than Bonds latest movie Quantum of Solace. I really loved Daniel Craigs first bond starrer and truly had high hopes for this one and hence got the release weekend tickets.

As it turns out, the movie was not all that special. Daniel continues to be the Bond who prefers to punch his way out of trouble rather than take help from gadgets. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but a very thin and unclear plot didn't help the movie. Other than Bond, there is no character that stays back in your mind, not even the villain. The movie camera work is too fast and hence seems patchy at times. There are no ladies in the movie to note, with Olga Kurylenko merely a presence for the sake of it. During the movie I did wish for Q to come back from the dead and give Bond a gadget or two, just to spice things up. But alas, the only accomplice Bond needed were his fists. Some action scenes were good, but again, not enough action around the
action scenes, if you get my drift. The forced references to the
sequences and characters in Casino Royale was irritating, and to think that the movies climax is also driven by it was a let down.

As usual, the plot or the lack thereof is for you folks to see and savor, but my take on it is a 6/10 and I am being very lenient.

Bad to Worse

My second favourite gadget stop is teethering! How many more pins to fall ? :-((

The New Kali

Halloween + bored of stale costumes = Indian Goddess in a new avatar!

I am sure we will have some effigy burning and destruction of public property in India if these pics makes it some desi tabloid. ;-)











BTW, This is Heidi Klum and her husband Seal.

The Madness Continues...

The fall in the financial markets in the US continues unabated and the Indian markets can't be too far behind...



What's next ? Who's next ??

Sub-prime prequel

Here is a real nice article on the reasons for what transpired on wall street over the last month or so. [Thanks to Patel]



Don't miss the last line of the article. The guy still wants us to keep putting money in. :-D

Need Solution

I have a simple problem and need a solution. I may not have tried hard enough, but I am looking for a quick answer. Power cuts are a reality we live with today in Bangalore and has been so for the last few summers. I use broadband at home and many a time use Skype for conference calls. I have an inverter at home for backup power supply and it takes over when there is a power cut in less than a second. My TV, tube lights etc don't get interrupted at all. But my broadband router is a different story. The time it takes for the power supply to get handed over to the inverter is good enough for the router to reboot and this is super irritating. I need to wait close to a minute before I dial back in and as Murphy would have it, this usually happens when I am expected to be doing the talking on the call.



I called up some UPS companies and they say "No UPS can switch over that fast". I don't get it... its a simple problem and should have a simple solution. I am sure there should be other appliances which are just as power sensitive and critical. How come we don't have a solution for this yet!! All I need is a 1 second battery backup after which the battery can give up and my inverter will take over.

p.s: Sudden motivation is, I was downloading a file for the last 6 hours from rapidshare and needed just 20 mins to complete it, but some BESCOM employee felt like testing my inverter and just did a power flip flop. Result is, my download stopped, can't be resumed and now since I am over my rapidshare limit, can't download for the next few hours!!

Web Junk Confirmed!

We only had to wait a day to see the true reason behind the website.



I should have guessed as much when I saw the primarily "Orange" colour in the Ads. Looks like the real estate business is not doing too well and hence they had initially gotten into the furniture business and now travel. Or is it that they have made so much money from the real estate business and don't know what to do with it! :-) Either way, all the folks who went to the website and spilt their hearts out should be feeling pretty letdown with the true intent of the website! Crap!

Web Junk !?!

Those who listen to FM Radio in Bangalore or read Times Of India (Bangalore edition) could not have missed the rather uninspired Ads on a rather interesting topic. See below and here:



I was extremely interested to know what the intent of the website was. Was it to know why people who have settled down in Bangalore are thinking of retracing their steps (I know a few such cases). Or was it to know if Bangaloreans are contemplating leaving Bangalore (I don't know a single case). Or was it just a whacky new way of attracting readership for some newspaper like DNA Daily's Whats in Bangalores DNA or Bangalore Mirrors Get Bangalore talking campaigns.

As it turns out, its a damp squib. Its likely just a portal for people to say *something* and probably for some marketing folks to collect email ids. Unless something big is waiting in suspense, such websites just add to worldwideweb junk!